


Peaky Blinders

by Grapeofwrath



Category: 1920's - Fandom, Peaky Blinders, cillian murphy - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-14 12:47:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3411176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grapeofwrath/pseuds/Grapeofwrath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darby Sabini's daughter finds herself being integrated into the world of The Peaky Blinders against her will.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Peaky Blinders

She can’t remember if he ever held her or not. She watches his finger smooth over the trigger of his gun. Imagining him cradling her infantile head,  she hears him singing a sweet, phantom lullaby to her. She’s pictured the ways that he could love her, but nothing would ever be further from the truth. She knew it. He knew it. Everyone with connections to Darby Sabini in the south of England knew it, too.

  
   Her real father was a farmer. Or an astronaut. Or a prince from a far away Albion. Dreams of her biological father came easy at night. While she lie awake drowning out the sounds of her pretend father fucking every woman he could lay his hands on, she lost him. Darby said her father didn’t want her in life, or in memory. And if her real father didn’t want her than Darby himself didn’t, either. Darby just wanted a son, but she knew what he truly wanted:  _A King_. She wasn’t his blood and she was never going to be. Her mother had lied and had long since paid the price of those lies.

  Now, Charlie Sabini lives with the truth. And as she watches the man that’s raised her raise a gun to some poor, unfortunate soul, she begins to see how hard it is to keep it safe.

    Growing up a Sabini had its difficulties. Darby never hid who he was from her. She remembers him counting stacks of money, not caring where some of it would land. He taught her how to hold a gun when she was four, a thumb in her mouth, and a finger on the trigger. Charlie was a petty thief by ten years of age. The women from the church knew to keep their purses close to them whenever she was around. 

  These days, she spends her life upholding Darby’s life in papers. It has its perks. She is no man, but Darby makes sure she understands that maybe one day she could inherit his kingdom, even if what she has between her legs doesn’t swing. He conditioned her to to be a Sabini before and after he knew the truth about her. For awhile, she thought he was kind for keeping her around, but  he couldn’t find it in his heart to rid himself of all his hard work. She kept her hair short to appease him. Her clothes hid every womanly feature as she grew. She harbored the idea that if her real father hid who he was, than it was her right as well. It was the only thing she had left of him and she clung to it stubbornly.  
   

  Charlie feels a thrill when Darby holds his gun against the mans head. She knows by now that he won’t pull the trigger himself. Darby Sarbini is a renegade of a man, but his coats are expensive. Besides, men from all over the city would take the burden from his hands. His death toll is large,  but there is nothing larger than a man’s ego, and nothing larger than the ego of a man on top. Well, a man that was on top once. These days he’s rooting around basements looking for men with shotguns trembling on their laps. He’s finding them all.

  
   There is a real thirst for murder , a fresh alacrity hosted by the most psychotic,  and then there’s a penchant for all things chaotic. Charlie fits under the latter. She loves it when people beg for their lives because for so many years it was the sound she fell asleep to.  She felt excitement rattling her cage when she first heard what Tommy Shelby had done to his fellow bookmaker. It wouldn’t benefit her in any way ,but she loved to think about how Darby squirmed in his chair while the Shelby’s ran him in circles. There are only so many bodies he can step over before he’s locked up for good. She would love to be there the day it happens.

  
   Her arrival tonight doesn’t please him. In fact, it makes all  his men uncomfortable, too. The ones that want her for themselves look at Charlie as if she belongs only in their laps, a shy smile on the lips, and legs wide and ready for cock. They want her to be as supple as a petal and as pure as a whore with her greedy little fingers in pocket.They spent many nights just stroking it to the thought of her fullness, her wretched little mouth-

  
“Sorry to interrupt , boys” Charlie said, crossing her arms. “I’ve got a message.”

  
“I’m busy” Darby snapped.

  
   Darby  hates her interrupting for different reasons. He can’t think whenever she enters a room. She fills it up with all  these ideas and thoughts and enthusiasm. She’s  persistent in telling him how much better she would be at other tasks. She’d sit at his side like an eager little mutt looking for approval.  But like every little mutt, she has to be taught who it is that holds the power.  It’s _his_ thoughts and  _his_  ideas that matter most. If only he could throw her in the Thames with the rest of the mutts.

  
“I think you’d want to hear this now.” she said. 

  
  Her tone of voice drives him mad. It gives Charlie a feeling of pure joy. She exits the dwelling and pushes her way back upstairs. She walks with enough authority to  turn the  man’s wife into a puddle of tears. The wife shouts  in another language, her words rolling into one. Charlie doesn’t stop too long to look at her. There is something about the burst of life in people that know they are about to die that turns her off. It makes it harder to walk away. 

  
  Darby steps out onto the busy London street when he’s done. Before he does, he wipes his shoes inside of the home as if contaminating his city is a bigger sin than murder. Charlie thanks the beautiful unknown that there were no children in the home. She may be a criminal, but she’s not completely heartless.

  
“Where is my fucking daughter?” he calls.

  
  Like an obedient dog, Charlie leans out of a doorway. She can feel every man watching her carefully as they always do. No one trusts her. She moves toward her father, his hands clean of blood. It gives her pleasure to think about him standing aside while his boys take care of the family . Charlie knows that no one in this world should trust that Darby wouldn’t do it, either. With power like that,  he doesn’t have to.

  
“Well, what is it?” he asks. “I don’t have all night. It’s fucking cold.”

  
   She thinks about all the ways to deliver the message. She imagines a world where it might cripple him in the street. He would look back at the mess he had made and wonder why it had been made at all. To fix the mess , you have to start with the person that first fucked it all to hell.

  
“Thomas Shelby” Charlie said, his name unfurling from her tongue like a gift. “He requests a meeting.”

 

                                                                                                    ♥       

 

     Is it all easy for Thomas Shelby? It certainly seems that way. He has power, charm, money. He has a wife and a child. He has people who care for him, and people who would die and have died for him. His blue veins are full of English pride and they bleed English blood. He commands attention from both the male and female population, respectively. They tell stories about him in places that stories aren’t just pub tales to be shared over a pint . He has a horse,  and behind that horse he has a mistress. When he lights up a cigarette, the arm that reaches out is on fire and it burns. Oh, how it does burn. 

  
  “You’re mad. You know that?” Arthur, his eldest brother said. “Not madder than me, course. Do you think he’ll sit down and take it up the ass this time, or will he kill us right then? I’ve got a couple of things I’d like to say to him”

  
 Tommy shrugs. He doesn’t want to talk. He just wants to smoke until the smoke clouds his judgment. He knows Arthur is right, but he has no fear. He knows what must be done. 

  
John, the second youngest, chimes in, “I’ll blow his head off before he even tries.”

  
"You do that and your wife will blow off your head for having to do all  that laundry again." Arthur joked. "Better yet, we’ll have Michael do it. He’s as close as we can get to another girl in the family."

  
Arthur’s laugh pierces John’s good mood. Hearing his wife’s name in Arthur’s mouth makes it worse. John and Esme have been bickering on and off for months. He would come home and she would start in about why he didn’t spend more time with his kids. She called him useless. He found time to be elsewhere.

   Tommy looks over at his brother and knows what its like. He offers him his cigarette.

  
“Thanks” John said, taking it without so much as another glance in Arthur’s direction.

  
"Did you hear me, Mikey?" Arthur asks. "You should start doing the washin’ and the sewin’ and the cookin’."

  
 Michael smiles politely. He is used to his cousins picking on him. He doesn’t remember what it was like when he was younger since he was taken away from his mother, Polly, at an early age. Usually he justs let Arthur and John get their licks in while he tries to find some sort of humor in it. John doesn’t look to be enjoying himself and Arthur is  enjoying himself too much.

  
“When do we leave, Tommy?” Michael asks.

  
"It’s just me" Tommy said.

  
  The reaction, he expects. He doesn’t expect the guilt that he feels. These men are his family and they should be by his side. But things have changed. Taking everything from Darby Sabini made sure of that. Retaliation is one thing, but Darby tore through the list of his former clients at an alarming rate. He killed the ones who underestimated him. He sought the ones that fled and paid them no mercy. The ones left were scared, and the Shelby business is losing money because of it. He had to hand it to Darby. It was a smart move, but now it has to end.

  
 Tommy looks over at his brothers. Arthur’s face shows disbelief. John looks relieved, if only for a moment. Through the window Tommy can see his wife, Grace. He catches Grace’s eye.

  
“We move forward after this” Tommy said. “We have too much at stake.”

  
"But Tommy.." Arthur starts.

  
"There will always be other things" Tommy said, his voice coasting with finality.

  
  Without protest, Arthur slips back inside. The guilt eats away at Tommy some more. John pats Tommy on the back before following his brother. All that remains  is Michael. Tommy appraises him. There was once a time when Tommy might have wondered if this was the right place for Michael. At nineteen, Michael showed more promise than he himself ever did. However, age was nothing in the war and it will be nothing in this one.

  
" What do you think about all this?" Tommy asked.

    
"I think new business ventures are good" Michael said.

 Michael scratches his forehead with his thumb. He pauses to light up a cigarette. He never used to smoke but it fits him now. This life fits him in ways he never thought possible.

  
"But?" Tommy asked. "I hear the ‘but’ in there somewhere."

  
Michael laughed. His youth is present on his face. Tommy envisions what he may have looked like if France hadn’t stolen that same light away from him.

  
"But…"Michael continues. "Sabini should get what he deserves."

  
_But if he gets what he deserves, do I get what I deserve, too?_ Tommy thinks to himself. He takes a long peak at Grace through the window.

 

                                                                                                    ♥ 

 

Darby despises Jews. Somehow, he always says, Jews are sitting at the table and eating his food. In this particular circumstance, a few jews are at the table, but there is no food. Alfie Solomons refuses to eat, refuses to do anything but sit uncomfortably in a high-backed chair. His eyes, large and unblinking, size up Charlie instead. She sits on the table top as if no one questions why she is there. It isn’t sexual with Alfie. He’s almost fascinated by her. His right hand man, Ollie,  is weary. He’s heard about Sabini’s daughter and he doesn’t like what he hears.

  
    Charlie can feel Alfie’s attention. She swings her legs out from underneath herself and stands up. Taking a seat across from him, she stares directly into his eyes. Ollie clears his throat. Ollie’s nervous, or at least that is the feeling Charlie gets from him. It’s just the three of them in the room. Darby is busy making sure the Peaky Blinders won’t show up wanting a fight. A part of Darby hopes for it, but just like Tommy,  what he really wants is all this to go away so that he can move on.

  
“I don’t like you staring at me” Alfie announces.

  
  Charlie removes her eyes from his. He’s not so imposing if you look at him all at once. She knows what she’s heard about him. She admits to herself that there is a certain feeling of pleasure being so close to him. He’s not tall by any means. He has a sweet face, a good body. His clothes all the way up to his hat are well maintained and appealing. Still, no one can ever be sure of what’s under the wrapper. Even the most deadliest things look pretty on the surface.

  
"What would you rather me look at?" Charlie asks.

  
 She focuses her attention on Ollie. He’s plain, but handsome. He reminds her of someone who got mixed up with the wrong people but stayed because they made him feel braver.  Her gaze makes him so uncomfortable that its almost comical . He begins toying with the yarmulke on his head. His nerves are like a signal to his partner. Alfie’s face hardens and the interest in Charlie disappears in a flash.

  
"If you’re trying to be threatening you should at least consider getting a new right-hand. This ones sweating like a pig" Charlie said. "Or, sorry,  is pig not a kosher term?"

  
   For a split second, Alfie thinks about taking this girl by her throat and showing her what it feels like to really sweat. Doing so would result in a war, and he would rather sit amongst his barrells of alcohol a happy man rather than a dead one. He smiles, his teeth a shocking  white against his beard.

  
"He’s taking too long" Ollie whispers.

  
"It’s what he does" Charlie said. 

  
   Ollie leers at Charlie before whispering something in Alfie’s ear. Alfie’s eyes remain on her. He doesn’t stop smiling.  She removes herself from the seat and walks out of the room. Charlie isn’t sure why Alfie Solomons is here in the first place. Awhile ago he and Darby made a deal that trapped Thomas Shelby. It had amazed her that her stubborn father had bespoke temporary peace to his Jewish competition all in the favor of tearing the Shelby’s apart. It meant that much to him to ruin Tommy.

  
_I wonder what lengths he would go to just to ruin me,_  Charlie thinks.

 

                                                                                                       ♥ 

 

   Tommy is stupid enough to leave his gun in the car. He hangs half of his body out of the side door, one leg in the car,  and the other in the street. After a quick smoke, his eyes lazily scan the area. It’s too quiet. All of this goes against his routine and it feels bizarre  like he’s just stepped into another universe. Tommy is very clever. He can talk his way out of anything, but this will take more than just cleverness. The shit that he and his brothers pulled with Sabini, well, he should have been shot dead long ago. A small part of Tommy doesn’t expect to come out of this unscathed.

  
  Grace begged him not to go. She had drawn her handgun from her purse and told him that she was coming with him. He had to talk her down. He didn’t like that. She was mad at him, choosing to spend the night at the home of his sister, Ada Thorne (née Shelby). The pair of them had always argued about his coming and goings since they got back together and got married. She didn’t like him risking the safety of their family. Tommy didn’t like it, either, but this is the way that things have always been.

  
_You’ll get us all killed. I want out, Tommy. Me, the baby, us together._

  
 Pulling his coat closer to him, he steps out of the car. He approaches Sabini’s place silently. The unassuming white mass tucks into the rest of the houses nicely, but there is no mistaking who it belongs to. Two men guard the front door like soldiers. They give Tommy flashbacks of a time and place he would rather forget.

  
"Don’t worry, gentleman. Lucky for you I’m unarmed" Tommy said.

  
  They search him out in the open like its the most natural thing in the world. In these parts, maybe it is. All they find is an empty holster and a packet of mints in his jacket pocket. They tell him to remove everything and he does. They throw his jacket, holster, and hat on the spiked gate outside and usher him in. Tommy is told to remove his shoes at the entrance.

  
"This way" one of the men says.

  
  He is led to a room to the left of the entryway. The room is well furnished with a few chairs that look expensive and an unlit open fire. He sits down on one of the chairs and is left alone, the door shutting loudly behind the man. He supposes that this should feel more serious but he can’t help feeling entertained. Tommy wiggles his toes and smiles to himself. If Arthur were here they would be doubled over from laughter.

 

 He doesn’t notice Charlie in the room. She studies him as he leans his head against the back of the chair and lets out a long sigh. He looks bored. His nonchalance sparks something in her. An amusement, perhaps, but it keeps  her from being able to look away from him.

  
“You’re more handsome than I thought you would be” she said, a surprise even to herself.

  
  Just as relaxed as he was, Tommy turns to gape at her. His eyes betray nothing. The blue of them leaves Charlie with a feeling of ease that she can’t quite explain. They evaluate each other until he begins to realize who it is that he’s looking at.

  
“You’re prettier than I thought you would be” Tommy said.

  
" Smarter, too. I’m just pretty?" Charlie asked, pouting. "Is this what you thought I would be like?"

  
Tommy looks at the door he came through. He’s waiting for something to happen, some trick. He looks over at Charlie and shakes his head.

  
"I’ve no idea" he said. 

  
 Word across London, Birmingham, and even as far as Ireland traveled fast, even before telephones existed. Everyone knew of Darby’s daughter but he walked around like she was a well kept secret.  She wasn’t seen in public for the first few years of her life. If need be, Charlie was always someone else’s little brat, and because she doesn’t look like Darby, they had gotten away with it.  It wasn’t until Charlie’s rebellious teenaged years that she made Darby let go of the rouse. Still, at twenty-three, few people could say that they had seen her in the flesh.

  
"A lot of people want to kill you" Tommy said.

  
Charlie grins ” A lot of people have the idea that I matter to him.”

  
"But you don’t?"

  
_"But I don’t"_

  
 Charlie crosses the room and takes a seat next to Tommy. It’s brave and stupid, but mostly just brave. He notices how tall she is, nearly as tall as he is. Her features are dark and unkempt. She looks plain but the fire is licking at the facade. Charlie lifts up her head higher so he can see her clearly.  He can sense her restlessness because it mirrors his own.

  
"Alfie Solomons is here" Charlie whispers. "Just thought you should know."

  
Tommy wants to say more to her but he’s taken away from the room before he gets a chance to. Charlie stays long enough to hide a knife up her sleeve.

 

                                                                                                             ♥ 

 

  Charlie’s mother used to hum when she was angry and hum when she was scared. There aren’t many memories that Charlie can recall, but the humming never leaves. It’s pressed into her mind like a flower pressed into a book. When Charlie was young, she once walked into a room where Darby’s hand was clasped around her mothers wrist. They both looked at her like she did something bad before screaming at her to scatter. The sounds of him beating her  mother haunts her just as much as the humming that followed it. When her mother was killed she was left with one very large hum in her chest. At night she’d rock back and forth and feel it vibrating beneath her skin.  _Forget. Remember. Forget_. Up until now Charlie had forgotten the exact sound of it and how it drowns out the rest of feeling.

  
 She walks down the long hallway to Darby’s office and she hums. The melody is pleasant, almost verging on psychotic. Her fingers feel along the walls she used to cling to when she was young. She can hear her phantom screams up and down them. Everything is imagined. Everything is pretend. She is angry, her anger focused and precise. Charlie is only a little scared.

  
It never took long for her to decide to kill her father. She didn’t anticipate it being the same day of Tommy Shelby’s arrival, but it fits. She knew he could sense it in her and she could sense the same hunger in him. This was always going to be the day that Darby Sabini would die, but never quite like this.

  
"Fucking Alfie Solomons" Charlie mumbled.

  
 She accepted that she wouldn’t make it out of the house alive. Her last breath would be a hum, a song to let her mother know that she’s coming home.

 

                                                                 ♥ 

 

  Abruptly, Tommy Shelby opens the office door before she can raise her fist to knock. His face is calm but his eyes move rapidly across her face. There is something in his eyes that pleads with Charlie.  _Don’t panic._ Laughter rolls out of the office in droves .Alfie’s voice rises over everyone else’s. _Don’t panic._

_  
_"Charlie, come inside" Tommy said.

  
  The air in of the room is thick. Everyone’s smiling and telling jokes, but it’s not right. Someone pulls out a seat and pushes her into it. Tommy stands. It is awhile before anyone notices her in the room.

  
"Ahhh, my Charlie"  Darby said. "Where the fuck have you been? I sent whatever his name was to bring you to me twenty minutes ago."

  
  Darby doesn’t wait for an answer. He smacks the man next to him in the chest and starts reminiscing about a time when they were in school.  Charlie can feel Tommy’s eyes on the back of her head. It’s always men. They look at her and they think that they know.  Quickly, she glances over at Alfie and Ollie. Alfie’s face is returning to its normal sour state and Ollie’s eyes have found hers. _Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t panic._   She feels so small and beneath them all. The feeling makes her sick.

  
"I should be going" Alfie interrupts, clearing his throat.

  
  The look Darby gives Alfie for interrupting suggests that the peace ends now.  _Just one last business deal to make_ , Darby thinks. The thought fills him with glee. He looks around the room before settling on Charlie. Looking at her disgusts him, always has. There is something he detests about the neediness of children and how they carry it into adulthood.

  
"Right" he said." Charlie, you’re going home with Tommy here. Good man. He offered a trade. I stop killing all the rat shit and he takes a burden off of me.I just love when things work out in my favor."

  
  The room falls silent. Tommy puts his fingers on the back of Charlie’s chair to soothe her. She’s visibly shaking. Tommy’s aware that Darby is hoping for her to protest so that he can find an excuse to dispose of her. He’s curious about how long Darby has wanted to get rid of his daughter , and of how much he had to convince himself not to kill her. 

  
"Well, then I’ll be going too now" Tommy said. "Long trip back"

  
  He couldn’t deny the deal. If he refused, everyone died including him. There is no place in Birmingham, especially for a Sabini. Taking Charlie under his wing means she’ll be in constant danger. This is not something he wants. Graces words come back to torment him.

 

_You’ll get us all killed._  

_You’ll get us all killed._  

_You’ll get us all killed._  

  
 ”Wait” Charlie said, rising from her seat.  _Panic._

  
  Tommy spots the knife before anyone else. He clasps his hand over her wrist gently to stop her from making a mistake that will definitely get them both killed. She struggles against him, but it isn’t much of a fight. 

  
"Don’t you have anything to say, Charlie?" Sabini asks. "Anything for your papa?"

  
Tommy squeezes a little tighter.  Unexpectedly,  his fingers start stroking the inside of her wrist. His motions are soft, controlling, and take effect immediately.  She looks over at him, her eyes watery with tears of frustration. Darby catches the interaction. In fact, he’s privy to the knife, too. If Charlie makes a move on him, his men have permission to shoot her dead. 

  
Charlie remains still. She glares at Darby long enough to make him laugh, the joke not understood by anyone present. Tommy tugs on Charlie’s sleeve. She lets him lead her out and down the hallway. She starts humming to herself.  Her brain fighting with her to turn back.

  
"I’m parked outside. Let me just get my shoes. Are you alright?"

  
As Tommy turns the corner of the hallway, Charlie turns back. Everything seems to move in slow motion. She starts running back toward the office, her body aching to reach it. She can hear Tommy running behind her, feel the air blowing at her heels. He’s calling her name but she drowns him out with the humming.

  
_Foolish. Fragile. Spineless. Slave. Burden_. The words jumble in her head.  _This is suicide._  Her heart hurts. She feels bile rise up in her throat.  _Don’t panic. Panic. Doesn’t matter, you’ll be dead by the end._

  
Tommy catches up to her before she can reach the door.His body slams her into the wall. He pins her arms to her sides and tries to catch his breath. Both of them cough and sputter.

  
"Are you fucking crazy? Do you want to die?" he asks  between breaths . "Or do you want to live long enough to kill that fucking bastard? Hmm? Look at me. This is your life now. "

  
His accent is heavy when he’s angry. His breath smells like cigarettes and something sweet. Up close, those eyes are even prettier, prettier than her. Charlie feels sense seeping back into her. She nods frantically. She listens to him tell her to grab all her belongings. He listens to her when she tells him that she has nothing left.

  
"Me either. Now, let’s leave this shit hole or he’ll change his mind" Tommy said. "Let’s get the fuck out of here, yeah?"

  
Tommy lets go of her arms. As Charlie moves away from the wall they both notice the knife sticking out of it. In anger, Charlie drove it straight through the plaster and deep into the handle. He doesn’t show her how impressed he is. He doesn’t show her how unnerved he is, either.

_Panic now._


End file.
